Dance, don't drive

Dance - don’t drive (or fly)

I love to dance. Argentine tango has been my passion for a long time and recently I have also devoted myself to dancing kizomba, a great experience. Occasionally I throw in a bit of bachata and lately some of my friends have encouraged me to try zouk.

And through dancing I have met many interesting fellow dancers and made good friends both locally and abroad. Because dancing is a thoroughly shared experience, it does take two to tango! Going to a dance festival, knowing that I will meet new people, learn from teachers known and new is an exciting experience. Or just going out for a dancing evening at home, meeting my “dance family”, that’s also a good feeling.

Dancing is also a way of spending time with “high energy and low emissions”. To dance you essentially only need good shoes, a good floor and good music. No expensive equipment, no need for special arrangements. Most any room can become the like “a ball at the castle” with little effort if the right people are present. On a sunny day you don’t even need a room, a street corner or a beach, where not even shoes are used will do.

But now I have really started to ponder over the question if we (me included) really are dancing in a sustainable way…. The reason for my contemplation of this subject is the recent avalanche of report regarding the state of the global climate. It is no longer Greenpeace or WWF that comes out with the big headlines and predictions of dire times to come; now it is mainstream and inside the systems organisations like the World Bank, EU and extremely business oriented consultants like KPMG and PriceWaterHouseCooper (links below). And they all have the same blunt message: We are on dead wrong track and if we are going to avoid an extremely unpleasant future we in the rich world need to cut back our carbon emissions A LOT starting NOW and continuing essentially FOREVER. Because otherwise the future will not be “a little warmer” but more like “superstorm Sandy” every year, droughts, deluge and despair…..

No, they are not kidding. And they are backed by an overwhelming majority of the world’s climate researchers and scientific organisations. This is reality, sorry.

That is, it will be reality if we don’t act! Because what these organisations, as well as the researchers are saying is that if we get our act together and start DOING instead of talking, we can alleviate a lot of the worst problems. It will still be a bumpy ride, but we can have a soft landing instead of a crash. But the times they are a’changing.

And this is where I come back to dancing, one of my favourite ways of spending my free time. If we can’t go on a shopping spree we can still dance. If a yearly trip to Thailand is unthinkable, why don’t we dance? If hopping on a monthly flight to London is out of the question, there is still a train to Berlin.

I would say that dancing is one of the best ways you can spend your time “carbon neutral”. But if and only if we all as dancers start to change our behaviour at home, at festivals and while travelling.

So are we willing to make an effort, by e.g.

• ·      Always choosing the transport with least carbon emissions when we travel.
• ·      Ask that all festivals we participate in serve vegetarian or other “eco food”, have organised recycling and purchasing “green” electricity.
• ·      And just stay home sometimes and dance with local friends instead of flying to that awfully nice festival in Croatia/France/Spain?

Of course I know that I am sitting in my glasshouse throwing stones wildly about. So despite having no car and a very frequent train rider, my pledge is to do even more than now. For me that means going by bike and train, even when that is a bit tedious. It also means that I should restrict my air travel and instead try to “travel in place” by creating meetings between different groups, backgrounds, ages etc. If I do travel, coachsurfing could be a way to make it both cheaper and more sustainable.

I have many dancing friends whom I hope will still be dancing at mid century, 2050. I would like them to enjoy and have a good time, knowing that they can continue to live in a reasonably stable world. I have a responsibility to lead, not only on the dance floor.

I include a link to a short essay called “Dance, don’t drive”.